


so it’s summer, so it’s suicide.

by Anonymous



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Inspired by Richard Siken, Introspection, Temperance Ending (Cyberunk 2077), actually, comfort at the end, johnny is literally being haunted by v’s ghost, no beta we die like jackie welles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29611185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: She screams at him, “Why are you lounging around, asshole?! Get up!”Johnny ignores her. He turns his head into his pillow and sighs.When he lifts his head to check for the ghost that plagues him, he finds an empty room.(or) How to get rid of your dead friend’s ghost.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33
Collections: Anonymous





	so it’s summer, so it’s suicide.

**Author's Note:**

> “You could drown in those eyes, I said,  
> so it’s summer, so it’s suicide,  
> so we’re helpless in sleep and  
> struggling at the bottom of the pool.” 
> 
> \- Richard Siken.

Johnny tries for the hardest time to move on.

He spends months on that one goal. Move on. 

Summer begins to end. Denial turns into depression.

He can’t try to move on from his place on the bed.

Johnny doesn’t think he’s actively trying anymore. Just passively letting time pass him by.

Time doesn’t stand still. Even when he wishes it did.

He wants to go back.

To a time where he and V coexisted in the same body, where he annoyed her to no end, tormented her on every silly job she took for a fixer.

Now he’s alone. 

It doesn’t feel as good as he thought it would.

He told her once that he would take her body if he needed to. He was lying. Johnny didn’t want her sacrifice.

He wanted her to live. To fucking _survive_. Make the name V known across the NUSA, across the entire fucking universe. 

Johnny has trouble responding to the name V. 

The first few days inside her body, he torched anything that had the name written all over it. 

He shredded the bills that piled up in her apartment. Johnny threw away her books. He even went as far as changing the sheets on her bed.

But it wasn’t enough. Everything reminded him of V. Of how she slept so weirdly, and how her excuse was that she didn’t have time to adjust her body.

The altar on the shelf in front of her bed reminds him of the Zen Master. The one she met without him. 

All the little things reminded Johnny of V. 

So he left. He paid the administrator the last month’s rent, kept his head down when he passed by 2nd Amendment, and took the shitty old car that V had left.

He arrived in Pacifica. Go figure.

After he settled in Pacifica and sold V’s car for the few eddies it was worth, there wasn’t much to do.

Johnny goes on walks, prays that a stray bullet ends his life here and now.

It never does.

The worst part of it all is that she haunts him. 

The fucking ghost of V appears and disappears, just like he did.

Only he _knows_ she’s not a construct, she’s not in his head. Not in that way, at least.

She’s a hallucination. The physical manifestation of his biggest regret.

Her voice, on the few occasions that her ghost speaks, is full of anger.

Fair enough. 

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” She screams at him when he drinks himself into oblivion. 

Johnny can’t answer her. Besides, if he speaks to her, he’ll lose his mind. More than he already has.

Her ghost makes it so hard to move on because every time he turns his head towards the door of his shitty Pacifica apartment, she’s leaning against the frame. 

V’s ghost wears his jacket, his pants, his shoes. Just like she used to before she gave her life for his. 

He could never figure out why she did it. Why she wore the memorabilia of the man that was killing her. 

“Are you gonna ask that kid why he has a bruise every time you see him?” She asks him. Her face is hovering over his.

V’s ghost has no sense of personal space.

Johnny shakes his head, opens his mouth. He snaps it shut and stuffs his head into the wrinkly pillow.

No talking to the ghost, he reminds himself. 

He doesn’t see her move back, but he can feel it. She scoffs after a while, “Not gonna answer again? _Fine_. Would’ve thought you would at least give me that, asshole.” 

She sounds real. 

Like he’s just a construct again. Like he’s stuffed inside her head, desperate for a solution to save them both.

He has to remind himself that they found a solution. It just wasn’t the one either of them wanted. 

Even if she _sounds_ real, it doesn’t mean she is.

“Johnny.”

Her voice is soft. Softer than it ever was when she was alive. 

“When are you going to leave? Why are you staying?”

And that’s the million dollar question. 

Johnny’s been thinking about it for the longest time.

He’s found that not only did her apartment remind him too much of her, but Night City does too. 

Night City reminds him of everything he’s lost. 

The city takes and _takes_. What’s new?

It gave him V, though. Even if he’s cursed himself for allowing her to die, he can’t regret the moments he had with her before her sacrifice.

-

He asks the kid down the hall about his bruises.

They have a lengthy talk on shitty fathers.

He teaches the kid- _Steve_. He teaches him chord progressions, a few beginner tunes. Never any of his old ones. Johnny doesn’t want someone to recognize the Silverhand playing style. 

And besides. Wasn’t a fresh start the whole reason behind why she did what she did? 

V’s ghost, as always, is relentless.

Less angry, though. Whatever Johnny’s doing is seriously calming her down. She rarely screams at him to get his life moving.

“Is that mine?” She asks one day. Her finger is pointing at the bullet necklace he keeps tucked away in the bedside table.

He was cleaning it. He does it every other day. Just to have something to do. 

Johnny doesn’t answer. No matter what, he doesn’t answer. Even when she gets up in his face, her hands on her hips like a disappointed mother.

“Where are you going to keep it? After you leave?”

And he doesn’t answer. She scoffs and sits down on the bed, right beside him. 

Johnny tries not to look at her, but he does. It’s impossible to resist the tiny glance.

V looks the same. The ghost of her, at least. 

Same hair, same nails.

Her eyes, though. They lack something. There’s an emptiness in her eyes that unsettles him.

Johnny looks forward at the wall. V’s ghost whines for his attention. When she gets up to block his view, tries to force his eyes on her, he closes his eyes. 

He doesn’t open them until a few minutes have passed. When he looks around the bedroom, he doesn’t see her.

-

Even more time passes. 

Steve shows up at his door with a new shiner every other day. Johnny tries to hold the rage down. Steve had told him not to worry, that he had it all figured it out. 

The kid never has shit figured out. Johnny’s rage simmers underneath his skin.

He cleans everything. The kitchen, the bedroom, even the fucking bathroom. 

V’s ghost makes silly remarks that make his feel dull in comparison. 

“You’re currently cleaning shit water, how does that feel, rockerboy?” She sneers when he cleans the toilet. He rolls his eyes but doesn’t respond. 

Johnny wonders if this is how she felt when he was living in her head. He wonders when he’s gonna find his solution. 

Why does she keep appearing in his head? Why does she haunt him so viciously, around every corner?

He goes on more frequent walks, talks to himself. 

Talks to her. Begs her not to leave, begs her to stay. 

Then he goes home. Does it all over again the next day. 

It smacks him in the face, a thought he has on one of those walks.

A niche. That’s what she needs. A final resting place.

“A niche sounds nice, you know? Like a burial.” He doesn’t ask how she already knows what he’s buying when she settles into the space beside the computer desk. 

Johnny just hits, ‘Confirm Transaction’ on the Columbarium website. He also buys a ticket to Los Ángeles. 

It’s time to leave, he thinks. 

“Yeah. Time to leave.” 

That settles it.

-

Night City looks hauntingly beautiful when you’re looking at it through a bus window. 

Johnny stares at his reflection. 

No more ghosts appearing over his shoulder. 

Summer finally fades. 


End file.
